Tarrant County Commissioners Court on Aug. 14 advanced a proposed fiscal year 2026 budget that the county budget office said supports a proposed tax rate of 0.1862 and would produce a modest decrease in the average annual county tax bill. The court voted 3–1 to move the proposal forward to the public hearing and adoption phase. The court set a schedule to adopt a final budget and tax rate in September.

The proposal matters because it sets spending, personnel and reserve policies for the county government and affects property owners' annual bills. The budget office presented revenue estimates, changes to capital spending and personnel plans and said the drop in the projected average annual county tax bill would be about $2.92 — roughly a 0.57% decline from the prior year under the budget presented.

Budget staff told the court the county's certified net taxable value increased to about $297,000,000,000, a roughly 4.7% rise (about $13.4 billion) from the prior year. The budget proposal shows construction taxable value at about $4.9 billion, a roughly 7% increase over the prior year. The average single-family taxable value used in the presentation was $276,948. County staff said mineral values trended down and that certain mineral tax values declined about 18.1% year over year.

Key spending and revenue points presented to the court included a reduction in available cash for capital from roughly $53 million the prior year to about $22.8 million in the proposed budget, a one‑time $3.5 million principal buydown on debt service and projected declines in investment income tied to falling cash balances and the winding down of ARPA balances (from about $121 million to an estimated $34 million at the start of FY26). The budget would fund a 3% merit increase for employees, a structure increase for law enforcement positions (7% for peace officers, 4% for confinement), and step increases tied to appraisals; county staff said law enforcement structure changes take effect Oct. 1.

Staff listed 58 new positions in the recommendation: 23 in the general fund and 35 in Road and Bridge. The presentation said 20 of the positions in the general fund are offset by eliminations or new revenue and that the general-fund cost of the net new general-fund positions was roughly $2.5 million with offsets of about $2.7 million. The budget office also said changes in reserves and debt-service targets drove an increase in the debt-service reserve, which the staff described as a move from about 1.366 to about 1.844 (presented as a reserve policy number in the slides).

On reserves, staff said the county hopes to reach a 16.75% target (roughly 60 days of operating reserves) but currently estimates available reserves at about $83 million, or roughly 55 days, described in the presentation as 5.15% (the slide language combined several reserve accounting conventions). The auditor's office told the court it tracks statutory limits, judgments, and collection-rate changes when estimating taxes net of tax-increment financing agreements.

County staff addressed several technical matters during the workshop: multiple iterations of the certified tax roll from the Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD) delayed final calculations; tax-increment financing (TIF) calculations use incremental change from a base year; and a potential constitutional amendment increasing the homestead exemption would take effect Jan. 1, 2026 and would not affect FY26 revenues if approved.

Budget Director Helen (presenting) summarized the presentation and the administration's recommendation and said the budget being presented supports a tax rate of 0.1862. Auditor staff explained revenue assumptions including fees of office, fines, intergovernmental revenue and investment income projections. The court then moved the budget forward to the required public hearing and adoption process in September; staff noted the requirement to publish elected-official salaries and to complete additional hearings before final adoption.

"So with that, I'm going to turn it over to the auditor," the budget presenter said during the presentation. In discussion of the average tax bill, the budget office said, "we're projecting, based on this budget, a decrease again of about I think it's $2.92 off of the average annual tax bill," language used by the presenter during the workshop.

The court vote sends the proposal to the public hearing process and preserves the statutory steps the county must take before adopting a final tax rate and budget. Commissioners praised staff for completing the draft under compressed timelines, while one commissioner objected to certain staffing and office‑allocation decisions and voted against moving the draft forward.

Next steps: the court must publish required notices, hold a public hearing and adopt a final budget and tax rate at meetings scheduled in September. Commissioners and staff emphasized that several numbers (final tax-rate calculations and the certified roll) could change as the appraisal district finalizes data.

Sources: presentation to the Tarrant County Commissioners Court budget workshop (Aug. 14), statements by the county budget presenter and the auditor during the meeting.